An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
With the vaccine rollout underway, the theatre world is betting on a triumphant return in the spring – and this time for good. If, like me, you can’t wait to get back to the West End, here are eight shows to book ahead for (whilst keeping your fingers firmly crossed for the vaccine rollout). Good
The vagaries of the great British summer are uncertain enough without a deadly pandemic and lockdown thrown into the mix. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has revealed that, while there is still ‘a lot of uncertainty’ about booking holidays at home or abroad, he has already booked his own summer break in Cornwall. Frankly, if I
While the West gets itself into a lather on a weekly basis about the evils of past colonialism is anyone paying attention to the new empire builders in our midst? Although their ideas for space travel often read like the pages of an Arthur C Clark novel, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have done little to disguise
Next Tuesday the banal humdrum of lockdown life will be interrupted, however briefly. No longer the sad, soggy Weetabix while listening to the daily hospitalisation numbers or Special K eaten at your makeshift desk. No, even if just for a couple of hours, next Tuesday is an opportunity to block out the Outlook calendar and
Just a few minutes into watching the latest Netflix sensation Lupin — its biggest-ever French show — and I was giving some serious Gallic shrugs. It’s hugely popular: it has been no. 1 in the US and was the first French series to break into their top 10. Elsewhere, Lupin is vying for Bridgerton for
Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 13 February Peter Gabriel (born 1950). The ex-Genesis singer called each of his first four solo albums ‘Peter Gabriel’. 14 February James Bond (died 1989). The ornithologist wrote the book Birds of the
On the face of it, Wikipedia’s list of the key events of 1 February, 2013 seems impressively comprehensive, ranging from Hillary Clinton’s resignation as Secretary of State to a hurling player denying he’d won €10.6 million in the Irish lottery. What’s missing, though, is something that’s surely had a bigger impact on our daily — and
In Britain, we mark the beginning of Lent with pancakes. Although nowadays relatively few of us strictly observe the Lenten dietary traditions which prohibit the eating of dairy and meat in the lead up to Easter, we happily leap on the annual opportunity to eat breakfast for dinner: sales of lemons and caster sugar soar,
The first Valentine’s Day under lockdown looks set to prove the truth of Shakespeare’s oft quoted proverb: ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’. New love is nigh on impossible when couples are forbidden to meet, making technology the next best thing – in terms of communication, that is. An unusual Valentine’s Day surely
Is it really such a bad thing that the Chelsea Flower Show has been postponed to the autumn because of Covid? Yes, we’ll be missing out on the blousy, frothiness of early summer gardens that we see every year – not so many umbellifers, alliums or delphiniums – and yes, the Floral Pavilion will be
Mention Homer now and most people will picture yellow, rather than bronze. But Homer Simpson’s comic status as a modern anti hero only makes sense with a knowledge, however vague, of the heroes in The Iliad and The Odyssey. They underpin the last three thousand years of western culture. Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and Helen… these
So.. you want to avoid anything trite for Valentine’s Day. No heart shaped chocolates, no pink champagne…actually, no pink anything. No flowers unless they’ve been gathered from your actual garden, or someone else’s. So where does that leave the classy romantic? With books, that’s what. Essentially, any choice that’s based on what you know someone
‘When it comes down to it, I’d rather have an action figure than a Golden Globe.’ – Chadwick Boseman The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has delayed the annual Hollywood Press Association Awards by two months; for the first time the show will be a bi-coastal affair, broadcast from the usual venue of The Beverly Hills Hilton on
The first thing you notice about Bridgerton, Netflix’s big winter blockbuster set in Regency England, is how bad it is: an expensive assemblage of clichés that smacks of the American’s-eye view of Britain’s aristocratic past. The dialogue is execrable, the ladies’ pouts infuriating. But bad things can be good, especially when it comes to sexy
Everyone wants to be an influencer. Even for hobbyists like me there’s a strangely addictive quality to the upward crawl of the follower count on the three big beasts: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Now, influencers have their eye on a fourth. Clubhouse is a new, invite-only social network beloved by the likes of Elon Musk and Mark
I connect to Netflix for yet another evening of no-choice entertainment. Well, I suppose I could take a turn around the room, mulling over the local gossip before playing a few notes on a musical instrument. But wait, there is NO gossip under this relentless lockdown, and I don’t have a musical instrument. So, as
The days are short, the nights are dark and the temperature is freezing. Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in an indefinite lockdown that shows no discernible signs of coming to an end. With most other pursuits thus denied to us, now is the perfect time to immerse yourself in a good book.
As we’re all doing Valentine’s Day at home this year it’s well worth breaking out the cocktail shaker to make the occasion feel special. This selection of drinks, each more romantic than the last, should do the job nicely. Air Mail A glamorous little cocktail that harks back to the 1940s, when the fastest way
‘I don’t wear a headband. If you want to, you can!’ says karate World Champion Jordan Thomas. ‘Don’t disillusion me, Jordan!’ I bark, perhaps a little aggressively. I’ve watched three seasons of Cobra Kai in a week and I am all about a karate headband / floppy fringe combo. Kick-ass comedy drama Cobra Kai is
Carrie Symonds is to join the Aspinall Foundation as its new head of communications, in a move very much on-brand for the Prime Minister’s squeeze. Symonds has been credited with Boris Johnson’s metamorphosis from pro-liberty, free market Brexiteer to environmentalist — a strategy that she may have spotted as working rather well for disgraced former
Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history … 6 February In 1918 British women over the age of 30 received the vote. The comedian Frank Skinner had a mother who always voted Labour and a father who always voted Conservative. So
Ursula von der Leyen’s threat to impose a ‘vaccine border’ in Ireland may have taken the world by surprise but was her erratic behaviour really so unprecedented? Having found herself at the helm of an organisation that has worked tirelessly to remove borders and preserve the free movement of people, she decided it was time
This week I decided to bring all the fun of the fair into my kitchen and make churros. Churros are a dough enriched with butter and eggs, that are piped into lengths and fried in very hot oil until crisps and light. There’s nothing quite like the smell of sweet, hot dough, frying. In the
Gone Girl star and former Spectator contributor Rosamund Pike steps into the shoes of a con artist in Netflix’s new original, I Care A Lot. Just like serial killers, swindlers and hustlers have long held a fascination for film-makers and audiences alike – not least during the golden age of Hollywood. If you appreciate a
The news that cricket is returning to Channel 4 for the forthcoming series between India and England has been greeted with relief by cricket fans and absolute mystification by everyone else. In 2005, after the greatest Ashes series any of us will ever see, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) signed a long-term deal
Rarely has the public imagination been so injected with the notion of a drug as the way out. AstraZeneca, Pfizer, BioNtech; these names have seeped into our discourse with such ease that it seems hard to imagine the shadowy time before them when vaccines were something routinely administered to children and the elderly. A time
Now, in an anxious time, I have an SUV, and this is apt. There is something very comforting about an SUV if it’s yours (though less so if it isn’t). They are designed to dominate any landscape they can fit inside and, if that is a hollow fantasy of control it doesn’t feel like one
At the moment, there are two costume dramas that everyone is watching, namely Bridgerton and The Great. If you’re a fan of the former, then you’re in good company; it seems to be the Netflix streaming show du jour and millions are enjoying its soap operatic storylines. However, The Great is the real thing, if
If last year was the one where people started to notice the beauty of the wildlife right on the doorstep during lockdown, this should be the one where we start to get to know some of the best wild places in our own country, rather than presuming that all that is rare and interesting can
